Fast-forward to present day Queens and one will find that not much has really changed. Yes, the shops and styles may be different. The roads are wider and the air is dirtier. The “cacophony of rebellion,” as it was described in the 1940s, still looms in the air, albeit often without brass and woodwinds.

“I am not so knowledgeable about the world of jazz,” admits Colin Marston, guitarist for the black-metal band Krallice. “I grew up listening to King Crimson a lot.” Despite the lack of fervor for the music of old Queens, Marston — along with bandmates Mick Barr (vocals/guitar), Nick McMaster (bass), and Lev Weinstein (drums) — has sure-footed knowledge about where the band’s singular sounds have originated.“Classical music, especially 20th Century, which is another influence on how I think about music," he says. "A lot of ambient music, especially ambient guitar music, has been important to me.”

Krallice’s self-titled debut album quickly shot the band to the apex of what has become the US black-metal sound, combining classic blast beats with ethereal atmospherics. This wildfire can be mostly attributed to word of mouth, a staple in the metal world via messages and music trading. For Krallice, this was especially important because the band rarely tours or plays shows outside the New York area.

“[We put] less of an emphasis on playing out and touring than most other bands," Marston says. "It is just not a priority for Krallice. We are playing a few shows for the record… five days or something, all around New York.”

But a question undoubtedly comes to the foreground. With the members’ roots and influences in non-black-metal bands (members are and have been in such acts as math-metal trio Dysrhythmia, punk-jazz act The Flying Luttenbachers, progressive death-metal band Astomatous, and melodic death-metal group Solecism), was the self-titled debut a one-off? Something to do for the hell of it? With the band’s second full-length, Dimensional Bleedthrough (Profound Lore, 2009), any and all doubts have been put to rest.

Dimensional Bleedthrough takes the power and atmosphere of Krallice’s debut and pushes it further, louder, and longer. The opening title track lays the foundation for this sprawling, violent collection with its unflinching power and sweeping crescendos from movement to movement. Barr’s vocals are at times in your face and other times seemingly part of the entire atmosphere.

The production, both a seamless blend of clarity and a blinding fog of rage, can be attributed to Marston’s other endeavor: he owns and operates the Thousand Caves recording studio in Queens. Along with Krallice, Marston has recorded electro-grind masters Genghis Tron, avant-garde artist Jarboe, and the scarier-than-hell, now-defunct Khanate.

Though New York City accepts all kinds of art, both outsider and mainstream, Marston feels that the city is not a metal town. “I’ve gone through periods where I think that New York has a decent metal community,” he says. “I go back and forth, though. I mean, there are some pretty influential death-metal bands like Suffocation and Immolation, but they’re really from Yonkers and Long Island, I believe. As far as from Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and so on, there aren’t that many that I can think of.

"There is a lot of experimental music here, which can be exciting even though it is not in the traditional sense [for] a metal band. But, really, I can’t think of a single American city where there are five awesome bands coming out at the same time. When I think of a scene, I always think of the [1980s] Bay Area thrash scene where a lot of bands came from this one area all at once.”

Even though the reemergence of black metal has generated a buzz, just as when any genre becomes more popular, an underground still lurks away from the Internet. Marston says, “I’m not sure I’m convinced of any more interest in extreme metal now than there has been in the past. It seems to me that that just happens every now and then [when] there’s a band from a more extreme-metal background that ends up on a major label. That’s fairly common.”

Safe in the spoken-word world of friends and critics alike, Krallice has achieved a notable following around the world based solely on its two-album catalog. Krallice may very well, and unintentionally, bring the American style of black metal to a wider audience and continue the legacy that the jazz greats of yesteryear did before them without big money or big business, and only with a big heart for what its members love to do: play music.

Louis Armstrong was a: jazz legend, marijuana supporter (he smoked every day), slang inventor (he is cited as the first to use the terms cats, chops, daddy, jive, mellow, pops, scat, solid), actor (he appeared in over thirty films), writer, barrier-crosser, and, as author Steven Brower points out in the introduction to Satchmo: The Wonderful World and Art of Louis Armstrong (Abrams, 256 pages, $35), a talented and dedicated collagist.

Drawing from over 20 scrapbooks and 650 collages (all made on tape boxes), the book follows Armstrong's life from his birth in 1901 (New Orleans) to his death in 1971 (New York City).

Author Steven Brower (Woody Guthrie Artworks) is a teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. The book is available here.

A symbolic act doesn't actually change anything; it's only a symbol, after all. But sometimes a symbolic act can change the way people see themselves, and change their understanding about what's happening and about what is to come.

Last Thursday night's reopening of the grandly restored Mahalia Jackson Theater in Louis Armstrong Park was just such a moment. The park is the home of Congo Square, where slaves used to gather and sing African songs, and the spot where jazz was eventually born.

Both the park and the theater were casualties of Katrina flooding, and the wire that fenced them off has been a continual reminder of the devastation that the flooding brought. So the reopening was, as mayor Ray Nagin told me afterwards, "awesomely, outstandingly, naturally New Orleans."

Vocalist Phil Manuell (who also organized the evening) and violinist Michael Ward were an early highlight. Manuell's style would have to be described technically as smooth jazz, but the silky soul of his Al Jarreau-esque vocals and the energy in the arrangements far transcended the shlocky sound generally associated with the genre. I don't think I've ever heard "You've Got a Friend" sound downright sexy, but Manuell and Ward pulled it off in spades.

Jeremy Davenport and Ingrid Lucia paired up to give fun and flirty renditions of a couple of standards, and their chemistry suited the mood well. Freddie Omar lent some Latin flavor to the evening, shining especially in a funkier, groovier version of Buena Vista Social Club's great "Chan Chan."

But to be sure, the best was yet to come. The great Marva Wright came to the stage and seemed fragile, resting briefly on a stool before beginning her first song. But when that majestic voice poured out and began a tingle-inducing version of "Amazing Grace" adapted to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun," the room snapped to attention.

And when she followed up with an energetic, bouncy take on "Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher," the entire crowd was transfixed and transported (even as Nagin worked his Blackberry from the front row, confirming once again that he'll never get my support — how can I vote for a man who texts during Marva?).

Now, in most towns, once Marva Wright has hit the stage, the show is over; who's going to follow her? But New Orleans' roster is incredibly deep with talent, and out came Irma Thomas, wearing a bright yellow African wrap and that 1,000-watt smile.

She sang several songs from her newest CD, in addition to the song that she slyly calls the New Orleans National Anthem, the Neville/Toussaint ballad "It's Raining." Allen Toussaint himself beamed up at her from the front row with approval.

As the MC began to read the first few words of introduction for Kermit Ruffins, a black-clad figure appeared, slinking behind the band, holding a trumpet aloft, and sure enough, began to play. It was a fitting entrance for the jokester and master trumpeter who "comes to party," as Manuell said afterwards, and his sly smile didn't disappear the entire evening.

Ruffins is one of the original members of the most powerful second-line jazz combo in town, Rebirth Brass Band, but since his departure from that group, he's been drifting more and more into what my friend aptly described as party music.

But when Ruffins lit into a driving cover of "I Can See Clearly Now," there wasn't a toe in the place that wasn't tapping, and many of those toe-tapers were dancing in the aisles. And when Kermit so joyfully and triumphantly sang out the words of that chorus, "I can see clearly now, the rain has gone / It's gonna be a bright, bright sunshiny day," it didn't just sound like a declaration. It sounded like a promise.

The entire lineup came out for a couple of rousing numbers to end the show — the Professor Longhair classic "Go To the Mardi Gras" and, naturally, "When the Saints Go Marching In." True to the egalitarian musical culture of the city, the performers filed off the stage and down the aisles for nearly fifteen minutes during the last song, celebrating with the audience more than singing to them.

What a show of solidarity with the great people of a great city. What a thrill to be able to clap each of them on the back and say a word of praise. What a symbol of why we must continue to rebuild and restore, every single day.

- Michael Dunaway

Allowing the themes, grooves, and instrumentation of the Jewish culture to infiltrate his influences of Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Sly and Family Stone, Bernstein assembled some friends in late October, and recorded fifteen songs in just seven hours. Drawing from the unrestrained workmanship of director Robert Altman (the two worked together on the film Kansas City), Bernstein went in the studio with only a conceptual framework, trusting in wherever the music would take him.

“I had never really done that before, something so loose,” says Bernstein. “I always have codas, little thises and thats, because I like to make arrangements. But this time I said, ’Here’s the groove; here’s the melody. Okay, let’s start with you. Come up with an introduction for this and we’ll just go.’ And that’s how I made the record. We never even listened back to anything.”

For Bernstein, moving from one place to another is what the term Diaspora is all about. “It’s the idea of having to leave and go somewhere and restart something, and in the process of doing that, you start to evolve.”

- Mike Hilleary